These are excerpts from two of the books I read preparing for our trip to the Marquesas. Herman Melville’s “Typee” is an adventure story that takes place in the Marquesas where he had an adventure of his own on the island of Nuka Hiva. It is an exciting look at the early nineteenth century customs there.
Paul Theroux is a travel writer with an edge to him and can be brutally honest in his assessments of people, places, and things, usually sarcastic but interesting as well.
Others:
“Those who for the first time visit the South Seas, generally are surprised at the appearance of the islands when beheld from the sea. From vague accounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people are apt to picture themselves enameled and softly swelling plains, shaded over with delicious groves, and watered by purling brooks. The reality is very different, bold rockbound coasts, with surf beating high against the lofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep inlets, which open to the view of thickly wooded valleys, separated by the spurs of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down from the sea from an elevated and furrowed interior.”
Herman Melville, Typee
“The fact that few people go there is one of the most persuasive reasons for traveling to a place.”
“The Marquesas have a reputation for being the most beautiful islands on the face of the earth.”
A two day push through rolling seas from Takapoto. This is a trip we have been thinking about for over 15 years from when we first heard about these remote islands on a previous trip to some of the outer French Society Islands. But it wasn’t until about 5 years later that we learned of the Aranui cargo ship when a friend gave us the book by Larry MacMurty, “Paradise”. In it MacMurty takes the Aranui voyage as his first South Seas trip. His reasons for going are different than ours but he told us the way starting a long planning project of checking into it, and going and not going. Now we are finally on our way.
Are we there yet?
The Marquesa group of islands is the most remote archipelago in the world as measured by the distance to it from a continental land mass. It is 3100 miles from North America. You can find them on an atlas by looking at the 7 degree south line of latitude somewhere west of the Hawaiian Islands.
The name Marquesa means “The Land of Men” and they are arranged into two groups, the northern islands and the southern island groups. Each were formed by ancient volcanoes and are the youngest of the Polynesian Islands. They are marked by steep, often vertical mountainous areas sliced with deep, tree filled crevasses.
They are one of the last group of islands to be inhabited when people from Southeast Asia first took to exploring. They populated the Solomons, Somoa, Vanuatu, and later on their way to the Society Islands and then the Marquesas followed by Hawaii. Go ahead, look it up.
So the Marquesan people will be treated again to a group of pale and sunburned Caucasians with us leading the sunburned group.
The Taumato Archipelago is a group of islands to the north-north east of the island of Tahiti. There are at least 60 islands to the archipelago as closely as I could count on the map. They are all low islands or atolls where a reef defines the submerged mouth of a once serious volcano. They belong to the French and are referred to as a French Protectorate. Some of the islands have been used for their nuclear bomb testing, including the modern neutron bomb. I think they mostly stopped this sometime in the mid-nineties. It was not very popular amongst the locals.
Our late afternoon departure from Tahiti and the next night were spent at sea with a destination of the atoll of Takapoto. It is located on the Western edge of the Taumoto’s and it was not bombed. There is a nice village there and we had a three hour shore excursion to swim in a white sand lagoon and maybe shop.
It was great to get off the ship and stroll through the village streets where young and laughing children circled you on their rusty bicycles as you walked along. I’m sure the large group of strange people all carrying various items of swimming gear down the street was good fun for them.
I found that the high-five hand gesture may be universally recognized as I raised my hand with palm out to the next circling cyclist passing and receiving a joyful slap that met mine.
Store’s open
At the beach a group of local ladies set up tables to display some of their handicrafts. There were some black pearl necklaces, beads made from different colored seeds and a display of the colorful hand colored parues waving in the breeze. Some people purchased the young coconuts with their tops cut off and a straw inserted for the fresh coconut water. Our first of many shopping excursions to come.
On the Beachhead
The swim in the salty water of the lagoon was a welcome sedative for what it took us to get there and in preparation for the next couple days that will be spent entirely on the open sea.
The Aranui 3 is 380 feet long and 58 feet wide and has a draught of 16 feet. Its main engine is can develop 5200 horsepower and it has a 400 horsepower bow thruster engine. It is outfitted with two cranes. The largest can lift 35 tons and the smaller one is capable of lifting 25 tons. The main cargo deck carries shipping containers and this deck opens up with back to back butterfly like doors. The freight capacity is 2500 tons.
The Ship’s Muscles
The original Aranui began visiting the Marquesa Islands in 1959 but it wasn’t until 1985 that the first “freighter with comfortable amenities for passenger cruising” began.
As the Aranui 3 pulls away from Tahiti so begins a 2200 mile journey where the crew and the passengers will live together for 14 days.
Our first stop will be the atoll of Takapoto in the Tuamotu group of low islands about 300 miles north of Tahiti. This stop is for the passengers to stretch out for the first time after a full day at sea. After that it is off to the Marquesas to off load our cargo at eight different ports and to pick up what the islanders have produced for sale back in the Society Islands.
This way to see the coral gardens, fish and other characters of the deep. Jump, splash you are there.
Greetings from our home at La Perle de Tahaa, (obviously on the island of Tahaa.) The Perle has seduced us with the gentle sounds of the ocean, beautiful sunsets, coral reef, schools of brightly colored fish and relaxing air. The nearby town of Tapuamu, with a small store, a dock, a pretty church, and a few homes is a pleasant walk from the Perle. Relaxing is easy here, sitting on the end of the dock watching the amazing sunsets, swimming and snorkeling along the coral shelf just offshore, or just reading a book in the shade of the garden. For adventure we took a 2 person kayak trip across the bay to the colorful coral gardens. They were a bit difficult to navigate with a strong current and shallow waters (it may have been better to go at high tide?) Anyway, lots of bright color corals as we were whooshed back toward our beached kayak. Fortunately we had the sense to hike up current and float back to our landing site.
All is well, we are soon off to the island of Huahine.
Our friend Dave on the back of the Aranui 3 listening to one of the crew play his guitar.
Michael and I have both been banging away on my little Surface tablet. It has sifted down that Mike is writing some great stories about our travels thru the Marquesas and I am having fun with the day to day travels thru the Society Islands. Because I haven’t quite figured out how to group these postings they will just come in a stream. We were first in the Marquesas Islands on the Aranui 3 and are presently in the Society Islands.
La Pearle de Tahaa, Island of Tahaa where we are right now
We arrived by taxi at the industrial cargo dock where the Aranui was tied up. The dock workers and ship’s crew were busy finishing up loading cargo with the ship’s crane and the passenger boarding process was just beginning.
We dropped off our bags by the rolling conveyor and climbed the ships ladder that we would become to know so well. At the reception desk we were given keys and directions to the “dorm”. The dormitory is on the starboard side aft just in front of the large spools of mooring rope used to tie off the ship.
Le Hatch
Our key unlocks a hatch we step through into a narrow hallway. Immediately to the right is a n opening to a room with eight bunks in it. At the end of the short hallway is a curtained opening to a second room also housing eight bunks. There are four pair, one upper and one lower in each room. We find our bunks, C14 and C15, in the room at the end of the hall. We are each provided with a square wall locker and a private drawer below our pair of bunks. A curtain is pulled across each bunk for privacy and there you have it.
There’s a ladder for Robin
There is an area with large shelves to slide in empty luggage. We each had one bag and a small backpack that we completely unpacked for the first time.
Our dorm mates started to filter in during the process. There was an American from Cape Cod traveling without his wife, very friendly and packing a guitar. A 70 year old German women giving herself a birthday present, also alone with her husband at home. Another young German woman took the upper bunk above her countrywoman. She spoke fluent English, travelling on the start of a 6 month walkabout. An older Frenchman traveling alone with two oversized bags, friendly but could only speak French. A very large Tahitian women was last to move in. She was we found out a sales person who routinely made this voyage to visit all the different grocery and smaller shops on the islands taking orders for the next voyages of the Auanui to the Marquesas. She spoke only French and her native language. One bunk was vacant.
In the other room there was a lively Hungarian women who lived in Berlin, a PHD Chemist at a pharmaceutical company. A slight woman from Paris who was an avid bird watcher with a list of birds she hoped to spot along the way. Two women from New Zealand were in the dorm traveling together, one the mother-in-law of the other woman’s daughter, the other the mother-in-law of the other woman’s son. A big friendly New Zealander with an Australian passport ,working and living in Australia who for the past 15 years or so has traveled every year for two weeks to a remote island somewhere in the world. A short rather unkempt French woman who always seemed out of breath running here and there. A pleasant woman from England with beautiful, long red hair and lives near Stonhenge, and another women from England who was one of the most pleasant to talk with rounded out the rest of the dorm people. We would all become friendly very fast.
Once everyone was aboard and following the welcoming drink, a strong rum punch, the Polynesian welcoming dance started. Following a loud beat on a drum a half dozen natural muscled, large Polynesian men stormed out onto the lounging deck in front of two drummers.
Traditional Tatoo
They quickly formed a line before us. They were splendidly tattooed with an artwork displaying the geometric patterns particular to the islands they came from. The blank ink on the dark muscled skin made them look formidable.
Let the Dance begin.
They wore feathered crowns tightly fitted to their heads and had carved bone necklaces and animal tusks hung from their ears. Their loose grass skirts were tightly girdled by ornate loin cloths. The overall effect was of a fierce, proud patrol of native warriors.
The largest man gave out a guttural yell and the tribal drumming commenced. The dancing began with a synchronized foot stomping, the flexing of and slapping of their thigh and arm muscles and all to an inspired chanting in tune with the rapid drumming. The movement was fierce with the pounding of their limbs and chest.
All this if set in a dark jungle with only firelight to reflect off their heavily tattooed and sweating bodies along with the mean facial expressions would be enough to send most people running for the boat in the bay, if it was still there.
And then three beautiful Tahitian girls with crowns of fresh flowers and wearing the traditional pareus wrapped around them joined in on the dance to cool things down steadily with their gentle rhythmic swaying. All safe to get another rum drink. The engines started.
